Origins of conflict

It was the intention of those who wished for a Muslim state to come from British India to have a clean partition between independent and equal "Pakistan" and "Hindustan" once independence came.[2] The partition itself, according to leading politicians such as Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the All India Muslim League, and Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Indian National Congress, should have resulted in peaceful relations. However, the partition of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947 did not divide the nations cleanly along religious lines. Nearly 50 percent of the Muslim population of British India remained in India.[3] Inter-communal violence between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims resulted in between 500,000 to 1 million casualties.[4]